Through the cracks

I was crossing the street today when I stepped in a very small and shallow puddle. The second I did I could feel water seeping into my right shoe. I didn’t think much of it until I realized that – you know – the bottom of my shoe should have prevented that from happening. Curious I lifted my shoe up only to find a very obvious hole in the bottom of my sambas. When I went to take my shoe off to see how bad the damage was, I noticed my sock had a gaping hole in the heel. In pulling up my sock and laughing at myself, I noticed I needed to cut my finger nails. As I put my shoe back on, my glasses easily slipped down and nearly off my face reminding me that I haven’t gotten new glasses in more years than I want to admit and that my current pair is barely holding on for life. In an intense moment of self awareness, I started to see how many little things I let slip through the cracks.

It’s comical – I have my life very much together in the big sense. I have very strong values. I have a vision for my life. I know what matters and what makes me happy. I am there for friends and family alike. I feel like I’m living very genuinely. All that said, sometimes I’ll forget to shower for 3 days – woops.

This is something I started noticing only in the last couple of years and is in large part due to other people pointing things out that I miss. I’m just really terrible at remembering to do what I see as low priority life “maintenance” work. It’s almost like my brain is so overly focused on the overarching important things in life that I forget to get a haircut for 7 months or don’t notice my socks have holes in the heels. I’ve started trying to do things to counteract this – get a shorter haircut than I normally would so if I happen to forget to cut my hair for 7 months it won’t be as dreadful. When it comes to something like holes in all of my socks though and my shoes falling apart, I don’t know what to do. I don’t think this inherently bad! A lot of what I let slip are mostly related to societal expectations around it not being “cool” to have holes in your socks, split ends/awkward hair length, shoes that are falling apart, and glasses that fall off your face. Frankly, I don’t care to spend much time on those kinds of things.

This begs the question – am I true minimalist who actively practices not having a lot of things and focuses on non material things OR do I just passively, accidentally, and blissfully fall into minimalism? Is it worse if it’s not a conscious effort or does that mean I’ve reached some sort of minimalist nirvana?! Should I try to fix this part of myself or is it just a harmless result of how I view the world? The jury is still out and my socks still have holes.

Best part of all of this – I came back to my friend’s apartment and ripped through my backpack trying to find socks without holes. All of my 5 pairs of socks have holes in at least one of the socks. Sigh. When did this happen?! Part of me thinks I’ve been punked and someone cut holes in all my socks just to mess with me. Oh well – Time to mix and match.

Random, related last thought: It’s odd how behaviors like these can be simultaneously deep rooted in one’s personal philosophy/outlook AND affect how others view your own outlook. “Oh wow! Anne wears her socks until they all have holes in them. She’s such a minimalist and really knows what matters.” > how some could view me. Maybe it’s just that I’m forgetful and others view me as being like that. “Anne – how on earth did you let all of your socks get holes in them?!”

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2 comments

Could have been my own blog post how spot-on you were about missing the little things. Of course, my mind won’t forget about the little things either, so I will wake up every day for months thinking, “today I’m going to make that call” or “today I’m going to stop by the store and get that thing” and then forget or neglect it time and time again.